Republicans on Jobs: Rhetoric Doesn’t Match Actions

Last week, House Majority Leader Cantor released a memo on the Floor schedule for the remainder of the summer:

“Our new House Republican Majority has been laser focused on two fundamental and pressing issues since swearing-in: job creation and deficit reduction.”

Unfortunately, their actions don’t match that claim. After six months in the majority, Republicans have still not brought a jobs bill to the Floor. Instead, they’ve been focused on a divisive agenda that hasn’t created jobs and hasn’t put forward a serious plan to reduce the deficit.

WHAT THEY SAID

WHAT THEY DID

When Republicans took the House majority they said their priority was job creation: “The first order of business has got to be create jobs,” Cantor said. [LA Times, 11/04/11]

A few months later Republicans tried to change their rhetoric so they could appear to be focused on job creation: “Under fire for focusing heavily on cutting spending rather than stimulating job creation, House Republicans are taking new steps to emphasize their efforts to spur hiring, including a jobs forum with business leaders to be held in the Capitol next week.” [NY Times, 03/09/11]

But instead they focused on repealing the Affordable Care Act, taking away patient's rights and putting insurance companies back in control of people's health care.

After voting to end Medicare, Republicans unveiled a more-of-the-same jobs agenda that was poorly received: “It also comes at a time when many in the GOP would like to change the conversation about the party's policy agenda… None of these proposals and none of the handful of others in the plan qualify as new ideas.” [Politico, 05/26/11]

Shortly after, they instead voted again for their budget that ends Medicare and raises costs for seniors, while giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans – even though the American public has rejected their plan.

It’s clear Republicans haven’t lived up to their pledge to focus on job creation in the past, but we hope, for the sake of the American people, that this summer is different. Democrats stand ready to work with Republicans so that we can create jobs, grow the economy and enact a plan to reduce the deficit.